Lucky

I am feeling extra lucky this week. First of all, my family made it safely home from driving through a blizzard Monday night! The next morning as I was wiping up floors on my hands and knees, I found my diamond earring on the floor that I hadn't even realized I lost! And, a car waited patiently for me as I backed out right on front of it after I dropped Grant off at the sitters yesterday! Lucky=Blessed:-)

Dance video

Totally random

A few pictures:


This is the view I see every morning as I pull into parking space at work, so pretty.


Lucky me, I get to see these faces everyday!









Dylan's first dance! He had a blast, he was a dancing fool! I have a few little videos I might try to upload later.


Spring!


Baseball weather in February!





A trip to creekside with cousins.


Cool night view last week.


Dylan crossed over from cub scout to boy scout. It was a very nice ceremony at church.


Boy scout Sunday at church. Those two little fellas in that group are Jack and Dylan:-) They did the flag ceremony before service.


Who is that blanket sitting at a table in Bob Evans?

I just blogged..

I just blogged... to say.... I love you!
I just blogged....to say.... how much I care!
I just blogged... to say.... I love you!
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart!

Can you hear the familiar tune of Stevie? How old am I? Old enough!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Grandpa

My Grandpa died this morning. I found out yesterday that he wasn't doing well while I was home with two sick kids so he was on my mind all day. I started telling the boys about him. I dug through some old pictures and found some of him at our wedding, our first house, holidays, picnics, and a picture of him as a young boy. I told the boys some stories about him. Grant was especially tickled that grandpa loved the Cincinnati Reds, "just like me, mom?" I started recalling all sorts of things about grandpa: stories of his hardware store, his key machine in the basement, his closet of suits in the hallway, his garden, his chair on the back porch, his old radio tuned to baseball games in the summer, him painting our first and second homes, his love of the buckeyes, his toothpicks, his old blue quilted coat, his hamburger press, going to the US Store with him, going to the farmers market with him in his pinto, him playing Hello Dolly on the organ, riding to Kentucky for vacation and sitting on the arm rest in the front seat beside him, him showing me how to 'skin' a fish in Canada, his plaid pants, him cooking bacon before church, and hundreds of memories of being at his house with aunts and uncles and cousins for holidays or birthdays or for no reason at all. I'll miss my grandpa I loved him very much. I feel lucky to have been able to grow up one block away from his house, and lucky to have so many great memories of him. Just think of the rejoicing in heaven today, he is whole again and reunited with his family and the One who blessed us with his presence.

This afternoon....

2:30- Jack walking in the door from school crying about his ears. Me calling the doctor to make an appointment, calling the school to have Dylan leave early from study island so he can make it to the appointment, giving Jack some motrin and a few cookies, and unpacking Jack's book bag.
3:00- Dylan walking in the door, starving, so he unpacks and eats a few cookies and I wake Grant up from his nap and change his snot encrusted shirt to look presentable at the doctor. Taking another extra strength Tylenol to fight a horrible headache.
3:20-Packing up and leaving for the doctor and deciding to call the doctors office to see if they can see Grant as well since he is battling a cold...that is fine. Grabbing 638 kleenex to stuff in my purse.
3:45- Arriving at doctors office and checking in. Warning the boys 236 times not to put their fingers up their noses or in their mouths or touch anything also warning not to put their mouths on the fish tank while staring and scaring the fish?
3:55- In exam room with two boys in gowns and one large boy complaining about having nowhere to sit? Jack has double ear infections and is wheezing! Grant just has a gross cold with no remedy:-( We get prescriptions for 4 medications and a reminder that Jack was overdue for his well check by 1 and 1/2 years!!! What? Hasn't he been to the doctor a zillion times in the last year and had exorbanent amounts of blood taken? Oh well...While doctor was faxing over prescriptions, Jack decided to stand on the examining table and throw the gowns up in the air and at his brothers Grant decided to chase the gowns and try to claw his way up on the table as well and Dylan, well he just called them both idiots. Remember the doctor? He is still in the very small, very loud, and very warm room with us. Great! His advice to me on the way out "good luck"! Thanks!
4:30- Standing at the check out window and Grant saying to the nurses who weren't paying any attention "hello?!" They just laughed, thank God, they even gave him 3 stickers. Jack is opening the door while I am trying to schedule his appointment yelling 'let's get out of this place'....and Grant is just yelling....
4:45- At the drive though pharmacy, it will be 30 minutes...
4:50- Picking up dinner at Wendy's (I know-mother of the year here).
4:55- Sitting in car waiting on meds. Grant crying for ketchup which I give to him.
4:57- Grant crying because he dropped his ketchup soaked nuggets on the floor and his seat. Me climbing out of the car picking up food and wiping tears and reassuring him that the food is still totally edible??
4:59- Texting Matt begging him to please come home a day early. Wondering if sitting in a hot car with two sick kids and the windows rolled up and a zillion germs floating around is a good idea...
5:15- In line at drive-through pharmacy. Finding out that they have no insurance information for either boy in their records and only part of the prescriptions will be $150. Wondering how much money I have left in my checking account. Passing over insurance cards to enter in new info. Waiting and watching 3, no 4 pharmacists trying to enter info and watching the cars line up behind me 4 deep....
5:35- A very nice pharmacist hands me a grocery sack full of medicine and the bill is only $44 for all 4 meds! Yea! Thanking God that no one in line behind me honked their horn at me.
5:45- Home, looking at dog vomit on the floor. Really?
5:46- Cleaning up dog vomit.
6:00- Helping with homework and distributing medications.
6:30- Calling boss to get a sub for tomorrow. Calling babysitter to cancel for tomorrow. Calling colleague to give her the low down.
7:00- Giving showers
7:15- Watching A-team re-runs in basement (I know another nomination for mother of the year) and blogging so I can some day look back at this and remember...
I am sure this sounds familiar to everyone out there with kids, crazy at the time, but sort of comical in retrospect.

Today

At preschool today as I was sitting beside a rather 'challenging' student...he looked at me with his hand on my leg and said "You're my mom right?" Me: "No, I'm your teacher, not your mom." Then next comes poking me multiple times in the boob and "my mom has 'boob-boobs' like yours, she feeds my brudder with 'em." Me: "Oh, well, please don't poke me there, it isn't polite!"
If we could read his mind it probably would look something like this: boobs=mom?!

Thumb's up

In regards to my last post, the manicotti was DELICIOUS! The recipe is on TLC's website.

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/auntie-annas-manicotti-recipe.htm

What's for dinner tonight?

Buddy's manicotti. Last week, the boys and I watched a new cooking show. It was Buddy from the Cake Boss on TLC and his new Italian cooking show-yum! He had his aunt on the show and she made her famous manicotti from scratch. She even made crepes instead of using the manicotti pasta shells. So while we salivated over the end result, I promised to answer the boys' request to make it sometime soon and that sometime was tonight. It is in the oven right now and I'm glad to report I did it all from scratch as well...I made those crepes which I have never made, and I think I did ok, the kitchen is a disaster though! I hope we won't be disappointed when we take a bite in about 20 minutes....I'll let you know.

Snowy hike

Saturday Matt planned an outing at Sharon Woods with his cub scout den. We all decided to go. I didn't dress too warmly because I thought we'd be hiking and I'd be warm. FYI, first grade boys are very slow hikers. I was a little chilly, but the 'hike' was fun and I made it but I decided to hang out in the car with a book for the snowball-kickball game. I felt a little guilty, but knew the boys would have more fun smashing each other in the face with snowballs without their mother yelling something about 'it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt'.











Dylan found this happy face the end of a log: